


Bella Bellum

by Pippin



Category: The Aeneid - Virgil
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 19:32:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4678673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippin/pseuds/Pippin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was messing around online and came across the name Lavinia, which brought me back to this Lavinia, from the Aeneid.  She's really just used as a story device in the work, rather than an actual character, so I wanted to look at her some more.  This is done about a million times better in the novel Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin, an excellent book that was loaned me by a teacher last school year.</p><p>Speaking of, I did very little actual research for this--just went off what I remembered from our study of the Aeneid in Latin V.  If I've got any glaring mistakes, let me know and I'll fix them.</p><p>"I sing of warfare and a man at war" is the first line of the Fitzgerald translation of the Aeneid, usually referred to as the best translation, as well as being the one I am most familiar with.  I think it's very pretty and poetic, honestly.</p><p>I'm thinking of doing a similar piece for one of my all-time favorites in this whole Iliad/Aeneid epic next, so there might be another piece in the same style about Cassandra (that was my Latin name for Latin III, IV, and V, so I've got a bit of a connection to her whole story, besides which, it is fascinating).  </p><p>Finally, the title is me trying to be clever.  Bella is most commonly recognized for having connections to beauty, and bellum means war, or close enough, and I wanted to tie together the ideas of warfare and Lavinia's femininity.</p></blockquote>





	Bella Bellum

The songs for him echo and always will.  History is written by the victors, but history is also written by those who matter.  I am but a woman, and so they tell me I do not matter.  I will not be in the histories, not in any capacity that truly matters.  Never mind that our city bears my name, or that tensions were escalated by the fight for my hand—there is nothing that is simultaneously as powerful and utterly powerless as to be a woman. 

There is something degrading to always stand in the shadows, to always be pushed to the side, to be ignored.  To be told that your place is to do no more than mind your husband and do as you are told.  I have only mattered when I served as an omen from fickle gods or when it was my hand they fought over.

At the same time, there is so much that can be done from the shadows that could not be done were I to be permitted in the light.  Manipulation and intrigue, tools for a woman, not fit for the stainless honor of a man, could not hold up to the scrutiny of the sun.  It is fitting, therefore, that I hide myself in the shadow of my husband.

But I am more than “Aeneas’ wife,” the name given me by those who have not bothered to learn me further than their mistaken assumption that I belong to the man they revere.  I belong to no one but myself, for all I am tied to the Trojan.  That is a give and take.

I have heard the stories of other women.  Helen, who started a war for being fickle.  Creusa, Aeneas’ wife before he lost his city.  Cassandra, gifted and then cursed by the gods for refusing to let a man own her.  Dido, a queen in her own right, until she killed herself for a man.  I refuse to be them.  I am not going to let my strength become my tragedy.

Perhaps I will not be remembered.  Perhaps one day no one will know the name of Lavinia.  It is not my goal to have monuments or epic poems or to be a hero—that is the realm of men, neither permitted for me nor holding any interest—but it _is_ my goal to be more than another check on the list of the belongings of the great Aeneas.

I am not a warrior.  I am not someone whose name will go down in poems.  I am not someone who wants any of that.  I do not need the blessing of the gods.  I do not need the adoration of men.  I _do_ need to know and speak my own mind, to press against my borders and redefine them.  That is all I am permitted to have, and even that much is a risk I need to take, and never mind the consequences.

History is written by those who matter, the victors, the men, and so history will not heed me.  But history is not my concern.  The authors of the poems that will be recited as long as there is civilization will not know my name, will not know what I have done, beside marry. So I will be the author of my own story, one to be sung in the shadows, among those I am a part of, counterpoint to the tales of the great heroes that grace the great halls and great minds of the common man.  Mine is a story for the women, a story for those who know their own worth.

Do not sing my name, but rather let me sing myself.  Perhaps you "sing of warfare and a man at war," but do not sing me.

**Author's Note:**

> I was messing around online and came across the name Lavinia, which brought me back to this Lavinia, from the Aeneid. She's really just used as a story device in the work, rather than an actual character, so I wanted to look at her some more. This is done about a million times better in the novel Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin, an excellent book that was loaned me by a teacher last school year.
> 
> Speaking of, I did very little actual research for this--just went off what I remembered from our study of the Aeneid in Latin V. If I've got any glaring mistakes, let me know and I'll fix them.
> 
> "I sing of warfare and a man at war" is the first line of the Fitzgerald translation of the Aeneid, usually referred to as the best translation, as well as being the one I am most familiar with. I think it's very pretty and poetic, honestly.
> 
> I'm thinking of doing a similar piece for one of my all-time favorites in this whole Iliad/Aeneid epic next, so there might be another piece in the same style about Cassandra (that was my Latin name for Latin III, IV, and V, so I've got a bit of a connection to her whole story, besides which, it is fascinating). 
> 
> Finally, the title is me trying to be clever. Bella is most commonly recognized for having connections to beauty, and bellum means war, or close enough, and I wanted to tie together the ideas of warfare and Lavinia's femininity.


End file.
